F. Branch, 1st Black Lieutenant

Frederick C. Branch, the first black commissioned officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, died Sunday in Philadelphia. He was 82.

One of 20,000 black Marines to serve in World War II, Lt. Branch earned his second lieutenant's bars on Nov. 10, 1945. The landmark rank did not come easily.

"For a person of color to aspire to be an officer in the Marine Corps was a danger," Cornell A. Wilson Jr., a Marine Corps general, said last year when Lt. Branch was honored at the 95th annual convention of the NAACP in Philadelphia. "We still had Jim Crow laws. We still had unwritten rules and regulations in this country."

Lt. Branch's first application for Officers Candidate School was rebuffed. Serving in the South Pacific, however, Lt. Branch impressed his commanding officer enough to earn his recommendation.